A Study On Normal University Students’ Stereotypes Toward Students With Disabilities

Learning in the Regular Classroom (LRC) policy is an effort of the Chinese government to achieve inclusive education. With the implementation of the LRC policy in China, a growing number of students with disabilities are now studying in regular schools. Like their abled peers, those students have the right to a suitable education provided by teachers which benefits their potential development. But in the case of normal university students, they may have stereotypic views on students with disabilities and will carry them into future classrooms Affected by these stereotypes, these student teachers will misjudge and depersonalize their disabled students, and consequently put the effect of LRC policy in danger. Therefore, it is important to study the stereotypes of normal university students toward students with disabilities. On the one hand, a systematical study about the current situation of these stereotypes shall be implemented; and on the other, effective methods to intervene such stereotypes shall be discussed.Focusing on the stereotypes toward students with disabilities, present study comprises two parts. The first part includes5sub-studies aiming to explore the current situation of stereotypes held by normal university students. Study1used a semantic differential scale to exam the existence and features of explicit stereotypes. The results showed that participants’ratings on disabled students were stereotypic, with most negative ratings happening on the items of the adaption factor, and most positive ones on items of the persistence factor. Study2examined the stereotypes implicitly with the Implicit Association Tests (IATs). We found that participants’ reaction time in the compatible task (disabled students associated with negative adjectives) were significant lower than those in the incompatible task. Study3further explored normal university students’ explicit and implicit stereotypes toward students with intellectual disabilities, with hearing impairments and with visual impairments. As a result, participants’ ratings were different. They rated intellectual disabled students most negatively, and rated hearing impaired and visual impaired students similarly and more positively. Implicitly, however, participants’performance on IATs were not influenced by disability types. Study4followed the Stereotype Content Model theory to exam the content structure of stereotypes toward disabled students both explicitly and implicitly. Its was found that content of explicit stereotypes toward disabled students was high in warmth and low in competence; while the implicit stereotype content was both low in warmth and competence. Finally, Study5employed and analyzed the data of direct and indirect measures of former4sub-studies, and found no strong explicit-implicit stereotype relation.The second part concerning the intervening effect of special education training on stereotypes toward students with disabilities. Study6, in this part, used a pre-post design to determine whether a short-term special education training course can change normal university students’ stereotypes. We found that trained students’ ratings improved, especially on items of the persistence factor, the adaption factor, and the competence factor. However, there was no apparent change of participants’ performance in the IATs.According to the results of present study, normal university students held both positive and negative stereotypes toward students with disabilities. The stereotype content structure represented a low social state of the disabled student group. And the explicit and implicit stereotype were independent with each other. Furthermore, the special education training had an impact on normal university students’ stereotypes. Explicitly, trained participants eyed disabled students in a less stereotypic way. However, the training hardly impacted participants’implicit stereotypes.